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Welcome back. Module 11 covers the introduction to renewable energy. This is the first of six modules
on renewables. And this one introduces the different forms. So let's get started.
Now, we're going to talk about renewable energy. I'll start with an introduction of some of the main
points about renewable energy. And as a reminder, there are three original fuel sources. There's the
Earth, the Moon, and the Sun.
The Earth gives us our nuclear fuels and our geothermal resources. The Moon gives us tidal energy.
The Sun gives us the rest. And by the way, you might see in this picture of the Sun, that's Venus in
transit, that dark spot. The Sun's sunspot, that's actually Venus.
So we have three different sources for energy. And the renewable ones are the ones that come back
on a rate of renewal that's relevant for our planning purposes. There are many forms of renewable
energy.
Hydroelectric is one of the most important, historically and still today. That is water flowing downhill.
There's also wind, which we use for sailboats and for mechanical energy as well for electrical power.
This form is solar energy, which we use for heating and for electrical power. Geothermal, we can use
for passive heating or passive cooling and power generation.
Bioenergy are things like crops, trees, and plants as well as organic waste materials, like cow dung, old
tires, municipal solid waste, agricultural waste, and landfill gas. And then ocean and water energy are
things like waves and tidal energy and ocean thermal energy conversion. This course will prioritize the
five most prevalent forms of renewable energy-- hydroelectric, bioenergy, wind power, solar, and
geothermal. But the supplemental materials will include the ocean thermal energy conversion, tidal
energy, and salinity gradients and other ocean energy forms.
Now, renewable energy is any form of energy that is renewed continually or annually. We talked about
this before in the fossil fuels module. Some forms of renewable energy are not considered depletable,
things like wind and solar and hydro. And one key point, as a reminder, is that renewable energy and
sustainable energy are not synonymous.
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It is possible to deplete bioenergy resources-- for example, through deforestation-- faster than they
grow back. So it's really all about rate. The rate of consumption is a key distinction-- the rate at which
we consume the material versus the rate at which it renews itself.
And so we have these examples, like geothermal, where resources actually sometimes play out. So
maybe they aren't as perpetual as we think of some locations. Or hydroelectric, where the water system
still flows but dams actually silt up over time. So maybe that dam is not sustainable even though it's
renewable.
If we look at the overall energy mix in the United States, renewables are a small part of that, about 9%.
And that 9% is split out among the different forms of fuel. Hydroelectric is the biggest; followed by wood;
followed by biofuels; followed by wind, waste, geothermal, and solar combined with PV. So that solar PV
is solar thermal and the solar PV.
If you look at this breakdown, there are several forms of bioenergy there. Wood, biofuels, and waste
are all forms of bioenergy. So if you group the bioenergy forms together, they're actually bigger than
the hydro. But in their disaggregated forms, hydro is the largest and most important.
If we look over the last few years or decade, biofuels is a way that have experienced rapid growth. This
is one of the emerging stories of the energy mix. It is the exponential growth in wind and biofuels, partly
for policy reasons, things like mandates as well as market reasons, which is the cost competitiveness in
the markets.
Hydroelectric grew a lot from the 1930s to the 1970s, and then has roughly leveled off. It does go up
and down every year based on whether that year was a wet year. But we're not really building more
dams anymore. Wood has declined a little bit as we've shifted bioenergy from wood towards other
purposes, for example, biofuels. And wind is growing. Solar and other geothermal are starting to grow
exponentially with about a decade lag behind wind.
As a reminder, make sure you go online, do the online exercises. And then I will reinforce what we
talked about in this lecture. And I look forward to seeing you next time.
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